Are online based businesses as successful as proclaimed? Is it that easy to be successful online,
or are there only a few online businesses that are really successful?
Building a business online requires the same principles than any other business. You must be prepared to work hard and to invest in your business. Probably the most important requirement is enthusiasm, if you are not eager to build the business, it will not succeed. Alongside enthusiasm, is the willingness to learn?
Back to Basics
It doesn’t matter how great the product is, if the business doesn’t have customers to purchase products and services, the business will fail. Online, the business requires traffic to succeed. Traffic is the customers online that will purchase your products and services from the website. It is the key. Traffic increase to the business, results in more products and services sold.
If your business is at the front entrance of a shopping mall you will have much more traffic than in a back corner. Every potential customer will pass the business when entering the shopping mall. The opposite is true of the little shop in the corner. It is a numbers game. Not every customer will purchase, but the more customers coming through the greater opportunity of making a sale. It is the same online. The businesses at the “entrance”, in other words on the first page of a web search, will receive more traffic, than the business on page 20 or 200.
There are businesses online that generate a vast number of traffic, but it doesn’t reflect in the sales. Although the numbers are there, very few purchase, and therefore the business is not profitable. However, a business can be successful with only 10 to 15 percent of the traffic buying. What is the secret? How does your business generate enough traffic and the type of traffic that will result in profits that makes your online business a success?
The secret is in a basic business principle, you need to spend money if you are planning in making money. Businesses that advertise have a greater chance of success than businesses that don’t. Advertising spreads the word of your business, informing more potential customer, and more traffic is generated to your website. Why should you pay money for advertising if there is free advertising available? Statistics have shown free advertising doesn’t produce the same amount of traffic as paid advertising. Yahoo and Google advertising systems are included in paid advertising, but not in free advertising.
Search Significance
When you need to find something on the Internet, the first step is to search for it by using the services provided by search engines. Without search engines, it is basically impossible to find anything on the web. It will also be extremely time consuming and intricate. Search engines are often the first place a potential customer goes, because it is free, convenient and will produce the results the customer is looking for. It is therefore a logical step to pay for advertisement on search engines.
The information and services search engines provide are almost incomprehensible in value. When customers use search engines, they will page through the first few pages, most never search further than the first page, and very few will search up to page 20 or later. Therefore, the ideal is to have your business displayed on the first page of a search, but not all business can feature there. Search engines link information to sites, and a multitude of users click on links on a daily basis. The higher your business is ranked the greater is the chance for potential customers to click on your website link. How do you increase your page ranking in a search result? One of the methods is paid advertising.
What are you paying for? Basically you are paying for traffic. On the web you want “rush hour” traffic all day long. Paid advertising ensures constant traffic to your business website, and therefore indirectly surety of sales.
Traffic Costs Money
There are different methods of paying for traffic. Pay-per-click is when you pay for every hit, or click, on the link of your website. The content and quality of the business website determines whether the potential customer becomes a customer and purchases your product or service. Other search engines will charge you when your advertisement is displayed when potential customers search specific keywords. The right keywords in the advertisement are therefore vital. Use keyword tools to assist you in choosing the right keywords for the goal you want to accomplish.
Paying for advertising is a very good investment to make. The return in this investment is vast when you compare the amount of sales generated to the amount you paid for the advertisement.
